A Pound of Flesh
by Pachamama9
Summary: Charlie meets the love of his life after a dragon attacks a nearby village. One-shot.


_A/N: Written for:_

 _The International Wizarding School Championship - Round Two - Hogwarts - Wingardium Leviosa - Prompts (Swish and Flick)_

 _Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry - Counselling - Task 3_

 _Fanfiction Writing Month: February [2778]_

 _Winter - Festival of Sleep - Write about insomnia._

 _Herbology Hangout - Starter Pack_

 _Disclaimer: No, I don't own Harry Potter._

* * *

For Charlie Weasley, solace was a rare, endangered species, sometimes found in the dregs of the early morning before he left for work. In his line of work (as a keeper of dragons), his daily life was lined with second-degree burns and the ongoing fear of a fiery attack.

It wasn't like he didn't love his job. He did. He truly did. He loved watching young dragons grow up, he loved being able to coax an abused dragon to spread its wings again, he loved having a dragon nuzzle against his arm after a long day, he loved seeing the relief on a mother's face after he told the, the dragon that terrorized them had been subdued… He loved his job. But solace was not a luxury he could afford as a dragon trainer. He was constantly on edge, waiting for one of his more tempestuous dragons to scream at the others, for a boiling blast of heat to scorch his skin, or for a massive, scaly tail to slam him against a wall.

So as he walked back to his home from work, his rucksack over one shoulder, he wasn't shocked by the sudden appearance of a figure in his path; he was ready. He already had his wand out, scouring the area around him for more danger, as the figure sharpened in his vision.

It was a human being, but he couldn't tell if it was a man or woman, young or old, magical or Muggle, because of the amount of soot that coated the person's body. They limped as they approached, staggering with a misshapen bundle in his arms. "Help me," croaked the figure, stumbling towards Charlie. As the person limps closer, movements jerky and chaotic, Charlie could recognize a man, relatively young, with dark curls and torn robes. Distress rolled off of him in waves. "Please, please, help me…"

Charlie snapped into Healer Mode immediately, scanning the man and the child-sized bundle in his arms. His skin and clothes were blackened with soot, burns scattered over his body. "What happened?" he asked, rushing forward to meet the man. Before he could reach him, however, the man's left leg buckled beneath him, and he cried out as his knees collided with the ground.

Charlie was already there, bracing the man against his body, cursing under his breath. The patches of burns, the ash-streaked clothes, the hoarse cough… He knew the symptoms well. _Fire_. Or, more specifically, a _dragon._

When the man spoke again, Charlie had difficulty understanding him—his words had begun to slur—but he listened nonetheless. "Please…" he gasped. "Fire… My village… A dragon…" His dialect was slightly warped; he tripped between languages, English and Romani. Charlie, as a long-term resident in Romania, was familiar with both.

Charlie reached for him to help him up, but the burned man shoved at him weakly. "Not me…" He pushed the bundle into Charlie's arms. "My son… Please…"

"But you're—"

"I'm fine…" As Charlie took the mass of cloth and tiny limbs, the man collapsed, falling limp against the path.

"Shit!" Charlie shifted the child to one arm and scrambled for his wand. _Swish and flick_ , he thought, even though that spell had always been one of his worst. _Swish and flick. Swish and flick_. "Wingardium Leviosa!" The man's unconscious body shook as he levitated him, but somehow the charm was successful. Taking one anxious glance at the child, Charlie moved into a dead sprint, stumbling over rocks and dirt to reach his home. He _had_ to save them.

—

Dragon trainers, unlike many magical professionals, were well-versed in Healing. Due to the perilous nature of his job, it was dangerous _not_ to know how to heal most wounds. And after over nine years of experience with wounds caused by dragons (puncture wounds, lacerations, and burns), Charlie was at ease healing the man and his child. He placed the man in his bedroom, sprawled out on his mattress, and set the child on the table.

After performing a trauma diagnostics spell on them both, he decided to work on the little kid first; he gathered his Healing supplies and unwrapped the blanket, baring a baby boy with bloodstains and ragged, shallow breathing. He was probably a year old, and most of the blood on the man's clothes had come from a puncture in the boy's abdomen.

Pointing at the mirror above the bed with his wand, he shouted, " _Defero!"_ The mirror shimmered, pulsing a dull yellow, before finally connecting to a hand mirror owned by his coworker, a middle-aged dragon trainer named Corinna. After he sterilized the baby's arm and injected him with a dragon venom antidote, he heard a loud "Fuck, Weasley! What happened?"

The man on the bed groaned and stirred, twisting onto his side. Through the mirror, Corinna could see the entire room, but not the injured man in the other room. Charlie's hands were a blur; he performed a wandless binding charm on the child so that he wouldn't move during the Healing process and injected him with a blood replenishing potion. "Corinna," he said, waving his wand to anesthetize the infant's torso, "I've got two injured at my house; apparently there was a dragon attack on their village."

"I'll send you some backup; Li Min is on her way," answered Corinna. "Keep them stable until she gets there. I'll get the others, and we'll go after the dragon. Good luck."

As Corinna's face in the mirror faded, the baby on the table began to stir, keening as he woke up.

Charlie's mind was frantic, spinning through dozens of scenarios; the baby's chest heaved, more blood trickling out of the wound onto his wooden table. And although Charlie didn't know the immediate consequences of a consciousness spell on an infant, he had no other choice. If the baby's chest continued to move so violently, he didn't know if he could keep the wound closed. He performed the spell by tapping the baby's forehead, and he immediately went limp. He did the stitches in seconds, magically binding them with a sticky, purple spell commonly used in Healing institutions to close wounds.

There weren't any other pressing injuries for the boy, so he quickly knotted a turquoise scarf into a temporary baby carrier. He didn't want to put the baby down; in case a fever developed or the baby woke up, he would know immediately. With the baby unconscious and strapped to his back, he waved his wand— " _Wingardium Leviosa!_ " and levitated the man into the living room, where he magically bound him to the table.

The man, once Charlie stripped him of his bloodstained clothes and Scourgified his body of soot, was definitely worse off than his son had been. There was a stab wound that had penetrated all the way through his back, and he knew from the diagnostics spell that it had caused severe damage to both his large and small intestine.

He needed a organ-repairing spell, not just stitches. This was no easy wound to Heal. The man on the table had barely minutes to live. "Fuck," Charlie hissed, through gritted teeth. He lived miles away from the dragon training ground; even on brooms, it would take Li Min, the professional Healer, at least a half hour to get here. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" The baby shifted in his sleep, warm against his back. Charlie injected the man with blood replenishing potion and pain reduction potion.

The only major organ reparation spell he knew was Dark magic, requiring a sacrifice of flesh in order to give flesh to another. And in the three seconds it took for him to decide, the man suddenly jerked, clenching and writhing in his unconscious state, so Charlie quickly knocked him out.

Charlie Weasley didn't need to decide. It was a simple trade: his flesh for the man's life. And it was a trade he was willing to make.

" _Viscera_ ," he growled, and the mere force of the curse sent him to his knees.

—-

An hour later, after both victims had been Healed, Li Min had arrived to check on them.

By that time, Charlie was collapsed on a chair in the corner, bandages wrapped around his foot (or what was left of it), cradling a baby. "What the hell happened?" she asked, her eyes traveling from the unconscious man on the table to Charlie's foot. "Your foot—"

"Had to use a Viscus curse," he explained, his expression a tight knot of concern. "Check on them first. I'm fine."

Li Min knew better than anyone about the Viscus curse.

Nodding, she quickly performed a medical diagnostics spell on the infant. "Mild heat stroke, fading aftereffects of dragon venom, stabilized wound to the lower abdomen…" She removed her wand from the child's head. "He'll be fine, Charlie."

"And the other one?" asked Charlie, jerking his head toward the man on the table.

After performing a similar spell, she concluded, "Smoke inhalation, fading effects from blood loss, dragon venom… Various second and third degree burns on the right side…" She frowned, sliding her hands over the man's stomach, where a swirl of indigo magic stained his skin. "This is where you used the Viscus curse?"

Charlie tipped his head to look at her. "Yes. It was a bad one, Li Min, straight through the large intestine."

The Healer turned to him. As she performed a common smoke removal spell on the man's lungs, she told him, "That was quick thinking, Charlie. He would've died without your sacrifice."

She returned to his side. "Let me see your foot." It wasn't a suggestion; with Li Min, medical attention was an order. She told him to turn around and kneel in the chair so that she could see it properly. He moved the baby to the makeshift carrier on his back and did as she asked.

Charlie's hands tightened against the table as Li Min unwrapped his poorly-bandaged foot. "Yeah, well— _bloody hell!"_ Pain contorted in his foot, boiling hot. "I couldn't just let him die."

"You're a good man, Charlie," she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice. Li Min's warm magic washed over his foot, tingling lightly. "The spell severed your foot at the tarsometatarsal joint, so you've still got about half the foot left." Charlie nodded grimly. She explained that they could make a magical prosthetic for Charlie as soon as the wound was fully healed. "It's nicely cauterized; it'll heal well." Having finished with Charlie's wound, Li Min turned him around and sat him in the nearest chair. "What I don't understand is… Why were they here? There aren't any villages for dozens of miles."

Charlie shook his head as she handed him a blood replenishing potion. "Look at what they're wearing." The man was a dead giveaway. He had a red scarf tied over long, dark curls, and a pants of a similar color. He wore a white, collared shirt and a brown vest, as well as golden earrings twinkling in both ears, and a matching golden necklace. "They're not native Europeans, Li Min. They're Roma. You know, gypsies."

Her mouth transformed into an "o" of surprise. "So they probably moved their community here..."

"...without knowing about the dragons here," he finished. "Yeah, that's what I'm guessing."

The baby in Charlie's arms snored lightly as Li Min finally left, announcing she had to help with the wounded in the village.

Left to watch over the bundle of heat in his arms and the beautiful man on the table, Charlie could feel anxiety surge in his chest. How had he gotten here? Missing half of his foot, cradling a baby, blood caked under his fingernails…

He'd never felt so out of place.

—

Over the next year, Charlie Weasley grew used to the presence of the Roma man, named Ephraim, and his infant son, a joyful boy named Ilei. After Ephraim had discovered of the sacrifice Charlie had made, he'd been adamant about returning the favor, and insisted on paying him back in labor. Bouncing Ilei on his knee, he said, "I… I don't want to go back to my community. I love my family, but the wizarding Roma are a matriarchal society. After my wife died during childbirth, and the baby turned out to be a boy, I've been...an outcast in my own family. And you… You saved my life." Ephraim kissed his son's head. "You saved my son's life. And that means the world to me."

So Ephraim and Ilei lived with Charlie for the following months, until Ephraim and Charlie were closer than just employer and employee and Ilei started to call Charlie "Dai," a Romani word for mother. Even Charlie's coworkers referred to Ephraim and Ilei as Charlie's family.

Over a year later, Charlie paced before the window of his home, back and forth, back and forth. His house was bigger now, with a widened bedroom that he and his lover, Ephraim, shared. There was a nursery, too, for two-year-old Ilei, their son.

It was late, the sky pulsing throes of indigo and violet, so Ilei was fast asleep in his room, as was Ephraim. Charlie, however, could not sleep. Every hair on his skin was prickling in anticipation of something. Something was coming, he knew. He cast the fire-proofing charm on the house: once, twice, three times. Maybe he should go through the books again to find another charm. He performed another charm on the house, this one a regular shield charm. "Salvio Hexia," he whispered, tapping his wand on the door. "Protego Total—"

"Charlie?" It was Ephraim. He stood in the entrance to their bedroom, leaning his head against the doorframe. "Come back to bed, _ves'tacha_." That was a Romani word for "beloved," one Ephraim only tended to use when he was emotional.

Charlie flushed. Ephraim knew that Charlie had his quirks, that he couldn't sleep without knowing they were safe, but lately it had been getting worse. He was nervous all the time; any sudden noises could send him reeling with terror. "Sorry, love, I'll only be a minute. I just have to… I have to…"

Within seconds, Ephraim was at his side, one hand curling around his wand arm. "We're safe, Charlie," he assured the other man, gently pulling his wand from his fingers. He placed the wand on the kitchen table. "You already put up those charms before we put Ilei to bed." Ephraim's torso was bare; Charlie reached for the dark scar there, the aftermath of magic scarring his lover's skin. It was a permanent reminder that he had to protect them, that he had to _do_ something—

"Look at me, Charlie."

Charlie could feel the panic trapped in his lungs, like a swarm of Cornish pixies fighting to escape, but he forced his eyes to Ephraim's nonetheless. There was worry there, lined with something deeper. "I'm sorry," he managed, scratching the back of his neck. "Just...couldn't sleep."

"I know," answered the other man, one hand rubbing his back in slow, calming circles. The other hand was on his neck as though to brace him, keeping him steady. "It's okay." Something about Ephraim, about his presence, was making all the coiled-tight muscles in Charlie's body loosen a little. "Come to bed."

Strangely enough, Charlie didn't need for Ephraim to tell him _Charile, you're being irrational_ or _don't worry, we're safe._ He could hear those sentences in every syllable, in every movement that he made. He could feel Ephraim telling him, _I love you,_ in the way that he took Charlie's hand and led him towards the bedroom, his thumb tracing his knuckles.

And as he climbed back into bed, he felt that terrible clenching inside of him (that horrible tightness screaming _you're not safe, you'll never be safe_ ) fade a little bit, soothed by Ephraim's fingers combing through his hair. The flames behind his eyelids subsided, and the panic igniting his bloodstream cooled, as if it'd never been there.

With Ephraim, he felt at peace.

* * *

 _A/N: Thanks for reading!_


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